Increasing memory is easy. You just have to use every sense to remember.

So what senses do you have?

Taste

Smell

Sight

Touch

Hear

The more sense you use to remember, the faster and longer you will remember.

When I say ‘Swan’ what do you see?

You will most probably see a gentle, white creature floating on a calm river. At least, that’s what I remember.

Note how, to remember a creature, you use different senses. First you see it as a white bird which is then floating on water/river. They both are visual senses.

Some might even remember the soft grunt of a Swan. Here, you include your hearing sense.

Keep including most of your senses and your memory becomes sharper and sharper.

Now that we know one must include most of their senses to remember, the next thing is to build your own…

Memory Palace

Memory palace is your own palace with infinite number of floors and infinite number of rooms in each floor.

When I say ‘infinite’ you don’t have to visualize a building with infinite floors where the top is hidden above the clouds.

Infinite, in this case, simply refers to unlimited potential. That is, you have unlimited floors and rooms.

When you are done with first floor, you can start building the second floor, When you are done with the second floor, you can start building the third floor and so on. In this manner, you have unlimited floors.

How To Use Memory Palace?

There is no hard rule. It completely depends on how you wish to use your memory palace.

For instance, this is how I use my Memory Palace:

As soon as I open my palace, there are three large rooms. The room to my left is for my family, the room to the center is work life and the third room on the right is everything else.

As soon as I open the room to my left (the one for my family) I have several other small rooms, each for a family member. For example, my wife will have a room, my son other, my father a different room etc.

If I wanted to remember how my son spoke his first word, I would enter my palace, open the room to my left (dedicated to my family) and then enter the small room dedicated to my son.

There I will have a cupboard with different DVD or flash drives or photos hung up on the wall (these are choices but you should choose any one). If I had chosen the DVD or flash drive option I will play them on a computer which projects onto a large screen. There I can sit on the sofa and watch him speak his first words.

If it were a photo I would take it and remember the time he said his first words. Though its an image, the moment I hold in my hand it will be a motion picture.

Within my son’s room I have different memories stored. Depending upon how I wish to recollect them, I have them stored in a flash drive or as an image hung up on the wall.

My palace is built with several small rooms under each of family, friends & work and others.

I hope you are getting the picture.

Repetition is the Key

So you have created rooms for each family members within one large room for family and you have created several rooms for your friends and co workers with one large room for friends and families. Now what?

Whenever, you have the time, try visiting each room and relive the memory. This is the key to a good Memory.

The more you keep reliving the experience the strong the memory becomes.

Repetition is the key.

Without repetition your Memory Palace will fade away. You don’t have to set up a time for reliving the experience just do it while taking a bath, while on the bus, drinking tea or while just taking a stroll along the pavement. It really doesn’t matter.

One tip for Students

Students can use this trick to their advantage too.

You can have a memory palace for each subject.

For example, you can have a Memory palace for Chemistry with two large rooms in it, one for organic and one for inorganic. You can even make the palace smell of Sulfur. And to add more senses to your memory, you can make the palace float in a gas and have a big label running across the palace as Chemistry.

Do the same for other subjects and try adding as many sense as possible.

To Conclude:

Create your own Memory Palace and create rooms for each category. Sub divide it further into sub categories. And while reliving the memory try to inculcate the use of as many sense as possible.

The most important key is Repetition.

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About Dr. William Farrell

Dr. William Farrel

Dr, William Farrell is a Psychiatrist. He has been practicing his profession for the last 30 years across Canada & The US. Intrigued by his patient's behavior his desire to take research on brain was accentuated. For the past few years he has done intensive research on brain's behavior and functions resulting in some amazing discovery which he shares them here.